The Mather Triad: Series Boxed Set (Chloe Mather Thrillers)

by Lawrence Kelter

  “Don’t apologize, Mather, just give it to me straight. The sooner you learn that you should and can tell me anything, the better off we’ll both be.”

  “My father and I … we’re not exactly close.” I supplied the background necessary to bring him up to date on my relationship with Al Mather, just enough so that he’d understand where I was coming from.

  “So he showed up after all these years and proceeded to tell you that he fears for his life?”

  I nodded. “Seems strange, I know, but … my mother and I have been living with his fucked-up life for decades. Nothing he could do would surprise me.”

  “Why didn’t he go to the police?”

  “He refused. He said that he didn’t have any confidence in them. I guess he also figured that his daughter being an FBI agent gave him an inside advantage.”

  “And what did he think you could do? I hope you told him that you had no jurisdiction in this matter and couldn’t help him.”

  “I did, and the very next day—”

  “Is when he went missing, or is presumed to have gone missing … I understand. What a mess.”

  I told him about the anonymous call I’d received and the subsequent events that led up to Enio Benzino’s death. He could’ve really come down on me hard, but he didn’t. He seemed to mull it over for a moment and then said, “Yeah. I guess that’s what I would’ve done as well. You followed up with urgency and kept your involvement in the investigation at arm’s length. I mean, he is your father; you couldn’t just bury your head in the sand and hope that things turned out all right. What’s important is what happens next. You’ve got a tight line to walk, balancing between cooperating with the police in your father’s investigation and keeping it separate from your role as a federal officer.” He stopped and looked me in the eye. “I don’t have to tell you how unhappy I am about your father being wrapped up in a homicide. I mean, what the hell was he into, anyway?”

  “I wish I knew, sir. I was just a kid when all this originally happened, and as I said … I hardly know the man. All I know of him is the pain he caused us.”

  “Do you want to take some time off? I mean, you are still laid up. It would give you the time you need to stay close to your father’s case.”

  I shook my head dramatically. “No way. Sand has been walking around free for way too long. I can’t sit this out on the sidelines a second longer.”

  He rubbed his mouth. “You’ll have to tell Bakal everything. We have to be completely transparent on this. For the time being he’s still your CO and he’s the kind of agent who wouldn’t think twice about turning the matter over to the Internal Affairs Department if given the opportunity. I’d like to avoid that if at all possible.”

  “I’ll completely understand if you want to rescind the promotion offer. I’d hate for you and the DD to get egg on your faces because of me.”

  Ambler grimaced. “Hell no. Do I look like some kind of pussy to you? Make sure you do everything by the book and avoid conflicts of interest. I’ll bring the DD up to date. You call Bakal and fill him in immediately.”

  I shook my head woefully. “I’m really looking forward to that,” I said facetiously.

  “Deal with it, marine.” Ambler grinned. “You can either deal with him for the short haul or you can deal with him until he drives you out of your ever-loving mind. It’s your choice, Mather, but I know what I would do.”

  Can’t argue with that logic. Ambler had put it all into perspective for me and demonstrated that he was more than just talk. When we parted, I saw that Cabrera was on his phone in the car. He was smiling, so I gathered that he was not on official FBI business.

  As I walked toward the car, I noticed a familiar face standing on the bluff nearby. He was facing me, waiting to be recognized, and saluted the second our eyes locked. Frank Cormac looked handsome in his suit, standing tall and looking down at me. I waved and he started down the bluff toward me, his limp greatly accentuated as he descended the moderate slope. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  How am I feeling? Bruised, body and soul, but I’d never mention a word of that to an outsider. “It’s not the best day, is it? A proud man’s life was ended far too early.” I bit my lip while I searched for something to say. “I’m surprised to see you here. Bill Wallace wasn’t a vet, as far as I remember.”

  “No. I just wanted to show my respect for the man. We’re all just soldiers in different uniforms, aren’t we?”

  I smiled at the sentiment he had just offered. “Well put.”

  “Thanks. How’s the shoulder?”

  “I feel like a turkey that just had its drumstick yanked off.”

  He winced. “It gets better.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  He shrugged. “No problem.” He glanced over at Cabrera. “That’s your partner, right? I recognize him from the hospital.”

  “That’s him all right, Agent Dominic Cabrera, my friend and partner—more loyal than a beagle and just as undemanding about what he eats.” Cormac was bashful, and it didn’t take a boatload of sleuthing smarts to tell that, like me, he didn’t know what to talk about. I could see the gears turning in his head as if he were searching for exactly the right thing to say.

  “I guess he’s your ride home?” he asked wistfully.

  I nodded, but there was something in the way he asked the question. Shoot. He likes me.

  “I’d love to grab a cup of coffee with you sometime— maybe compare stories about our experiences overseas.”

  Careful, Chloe, even with a metal leg the man is still a heartbreaker. A cup of coffee is okay, but that’s it. Don’t lead him on. “Sure. When things calm down a little. My first order of business is catching the SOB who shot my boss.”

  “Yeah. Of course, there’s no rush. You have my number.”

  I saw that Cabrera was off the phone. “Okay then.” I wasn’t sure of how to say goodbye. I guessed a handshake would suffice, but it didn’t feel right, so I leaned in and hugged him. “Thanks for coming down. I’m sure the family appreciates it.”

  He seemed happy as we pulled apart. “Semper Fi,” he said with a smile and walked off.

  “Make a new friend, Gumdrop?” Cabrera asked with obvious sarcasm. He had a condescending smirk on his face.

  “Just get off the phone with Lorraine?”

  “Good guess, gummy bear. How’d you know?”

  I glanced at his privates. “Because you’ve got a chubby.”

  His eyes bulged. “The hell I do.”

  I pinched his cheek. “Sucker! Made you look!”

  Chapter 31

  Dr. Perry Hodgkin, the Suffolk County Medical Examiner, looked up from his desk with surprise. “Agent Mather, what are you doing here?” His gaze moved to the sling on my left arm. “I read about you in the newspaper, the gun battle at Times Square. How are you feeling?”

  “I’ve been better. I buried my CO this morning, and I’ve got a divot in my back that looks like a herniated bellybutton.”

  “Is it healing okay?” he asked with concern. “I’d be happy to take a look at it if you like.”

  I’d met Hodgkin a couple of months back in conjunction with a homicide investigation. I remembered him as being an easygoing kind of guy. “Thanks, but I’ll be all right. I was wondering if you’d extend me a small professional courtesy.”

  He stood up and leaned against the corner of his desk. “What’s going on, Mather?”

  “A homicide victim came in here yesterday, Enio Benzino. I’ve got a personal interest in the case, and I was wondering if anything turned up during autopsy I might find interesting.”

  “The stabbing victim?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “His throat was slashed. Bled out at the scene. Did you want to see the body?”

  “Only if there’s something of note.” I’d seen Benzino on the floor surrounded by blood and had no desire to see his pale rotund carcass again unless it was absolutely necessary.

  He th
ought for a second and then his expression became animated. “Come to think of it, he did have a rather unusual tattoo on his arm.”

  “Unusual?” A stencil of J. Edgar Hoover in a ballerina’s tutu?

  “The victim had a long series of numbers tattooed on his arm, nothing elaborate, just black numbers and a dash. Would you like to have a look?”

  “Can’t wait. Let’s have at him.”

  Hodgkin seemed pleased. He leaned over his computer and punched some random keys. “Just signing off the system. Practice what you preach is what I always say. Took the entire department to task this morning for not following security protocol.” He popped up after a moment and we walked out of his office together. “If memory serves, I believe that autopsy is still in progress.” He covered his mouth and whispered despite the fact that we seemed to be very much alone in the corridor. “Pretty cut-and-dried autopsy—I gave it to one of the kids to do. It’s good practice for the up-and-comers.”

  “No assailant’s DNA on the victim?”

  “Possibly. We found some flakes of dried skin on the victim’s clothing that didn’t seem to belong to him. The assailant might’ve had a skin condition, eczema or psoriasis perhaps. The samples were sent to a medical lab to see if they could nail down the type of skin disorder the assailant had. Ah. Here we are.” Hodgkin pushed on the swinging door and held it open for me to enter. He looked around, then pointed. “Over there.”

  I had no problem recognizing Benzino. He looked very much as he had the first time I’d seen him, flat on his back with his bulging eyes frozen wide open. The only difference was that he was half-naked, covered from the waist down with a modesty sheet, because yes, even the dead deserve their dignity. The physician standing over him was stitching his chest with coarse sutures; thick black sutures against his pale skin—Frankenstein sutures. Spencer, the attending doctor, was very short, a young man who looked to be shy of five feet tall. His nose was practically in Benzino’s guts as he stitched him closed. He seemed perfectly proportioned though, just exceedingly short. I believe the term for a perfectly formed miniature human being is homunculus, a rarely used word that stuck in my head because of its humorous sound. It was a close runner-up to kerfuffle.

  The physician looked up when he saw us approaching. “Just finishing him up, Dr. Hodgkin.”

  “Excellent,” Hodgkin said. He inspected the young physician’s handiwork. “Nice job, Doctor.”

  “Looks like the stitching on a fresh baseball.”

  “Does, doesn’t it?” Hodgkin said before turning to Spencer. “Anything to contradict our initial findings?”

  “No, Doctor, massive blood loss resulting from the severed carotid artery.”

  Hodgkin directed his gaze at me. “Spencer, this is Agent Mather with the FBI. Would you please show her the tattoo on the victim’s arm.”

  “Hello,” Spencer said with a grin. He turned the left arm outward so that I could see the numbers Hodgkin had spoken about. They were on the pale flesh on the inside of his upper arm and ran down from just under his armpit almost to his elbow, two groups of eight numbers separated by a dash.

  40801600-75150300

  “Do we have any idea as to what those numbers could represent?”

  “Not yet,” Hodgkin said. “When I first saw the tattoo, I jumped to the conclusion that they were German concentration camp numbers, but that was before I realized how many numbers there were. Concentration camp identification numbers are rarely longer than seven digits.”

  “And the victim was American, born just after WWII,” Spencer added.

  “Not phone numbers. Not Social Security numbers. Not New York driver’s license numbers.” I stared at Benzino’s arm a little longer. “Some kind of code, maybe? Each sequence doubles more or less, forty, eighty, one-sixty and then seventy-five, one-fifty, three hundred, except for the extra zero at the end of the first sequence. It seems too precise to be random, doesn’t it?”

  Spencer nodded.

  “Yes. I saw that too,” Hodgkin said, “but nothing is clicking in my head.”

  “Let me get a shot of that.” I yanked out my iPhone and clicked off a picture. “There’s a cryptanalysis department at the bureau that specializes in this kind of thing. Criminals and terrorists are notorious for using codes to conceal their activities.”

  “So this gent was on the wrong side of the law?” Hodgkin asked.

  “Never did serious time but spent his youth in juvie. He had a long list of offenses, but most of that was from his early days. Was he on the wrong side of the law? A slit throat would suggest that was very much the case, wouldn’t you say?”

  Spencer agreed wholeheartedly, nodding over and over again in a deliberate manner.

  My mind began to stray. I couldn’t help but wonder what had become of my father. Who had placed the anonymous call, and who had killed Benzino? Al had told me of the deaths of his two colleagues, and now there was Benzino as well. The man my anonymous caller said might be responsible for Al’s abduction was lying in front of me, deader than a doormat. What had begun as a conspiracy theory had now grown into a multiple homicide case, one that seemed destined to knock the Mather clan on its ass.

  My cell phone buzzed. The display read Zev Bakal. It was a text message from my interim CO. What kind of name is that, anyway? Sounds like a brand of sore-throat lozenge. I was momentarily amused, but the tone of Bakal’s message indicated that he was not. It read: My office. NOW!

  Chapter 32

  I had been bouncing back and forth between Manhattan and Long Island so much that I was beginning to feel like a yo-yo. It wasn’t that I was unaccustomed to spending time in a car, but with my father’s disappearance, Wallace’s death, and the constricting crater in my back … well, I was a little the worse for wear and not being every bit the hardnosed marine I usually am. Rub a little dirt on it, I thought. You’re not in the middle of the desert pinned down by enemy fire. You’ve been through worse and you can deal with this better than you are. It wasn’t the physical stress that was getting to me, it was the mental strain, the guilt I associated with Wallace’s shooting and, yes, the guilt connected with my father’s appeal for help and subsequent disappearance. I couldn’t have done anything other than what I had, but it didn’t change the fact that he had asked for my help and was now missing and a possible murder target.

  Cabrera popped out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box and saluted me with a silly expression on his face. “Commanding Officer Gumdrop, permission to speak?”

  “Denied.” I grabbed him by the jacket lapel and pulled him aside. “Bakal just summoned me to his office. I suppose he’s not too happy about the update he received from Ambler.”

  “He’s gonna chew you out good, kiddo. I hear that he’s got an advanced degree in demeaning and dehumanizing behavior. He’s gonna rip you a new one.”

  I flashed my palm. “Enough. You had something to say?”

  “Yeah. We followed your hunch and are in the process of checking out leads on women with severe facial disfigurement. We’re running all the possible photos through NGI and comparing them to the composite sketch made from the costume store clerk’s description.”

  Cabrera was referring to the new bureau Next Generation Identification System that had only recently come online. The system already had fifty-five million images in its database and was growing daily. It was capable of identifying potential suspects from details so minute even the human eye couldn’t pick up on them. I’d been told that in the future it would be powerful enough to make positive ID with as little as an iris scan. “All right, I’ll check back with you after I receive my tongue-lashing. I want to be there when the hammer falls on Sand.” I began to walk away. “Wish me luck.”

  “Wait!” he blurted. “What’s with the sad face? You can’t go into the lion’s den all long in the tooth like that. Bakal will eat you up and spit you out. Here, let me get you prepared.” He had that mischievous smile on his face. No doubt he had something priceless to say
. His expression was a dead giveaway. “What’s the difference between tantric eroticism and pornography?”

  God, he’s such a clown. It didn’t matter whether the punch line was going to be funny or lame because I already had a smile on my face—almost any encounter with Cabrera was well worth the price of admission. “I don’t know. What?”

  “Tantric eroticism is when your boyfriend caresses your naked body with a peacock feather.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And pornography is when he kicks you out of bed and bangs the peacock.” I grimaced, then snorted, and laughed so hard my stomach hurt. He’d been right—I’d be far better prepared for Bakal to debone me like a supermarket roaster if I had a smile on my face.

  I rapped on Bakal’s door and waited for him to acknowledge me. He was on the phone but waved me in all the same. He pointed to a chair. I sat down and waited patiently for him to finish up his call. It didn’t take long. “Mather,” he said before standing to push his door closed.

  The closed-door routine. Hmm. That’s not a great sign.

  He pointed to my left arm. “I see you’re still wearing a sling.”

  “Yes. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Did the doctor say if they come in a bigger size?”

  Huh? “Excuse me, sir?”

  “A bigger size … because now you’ve got your ass in a sling and mine along with it.”

  “I’m truly sorry, sir, but I had to make a snap call, and there just wasn’t time to run it up the chain of command. I asked Suffolk County police for their courtesy, but I made it very clear that my request was unofficial.”

  He plopped down in his chair and puffed out his cheeks. “Look, Mather, I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass. I know that you’re on your way up the ladder, and despite the way I’m perceived, I’m not stupid or vindictive enough to spoil that for you. I don’t see this coming back to bite us, but your actions require an incident report, just for the record.”

  “That’s very good of you, sir. I was expecting a lot worse.”